Things I've done while in labour.

(For http://beautifulbirthstories.blogspot.com/)

• Eat at a restaurant (early stages of a long slow part of labour)
• Take my eldest to our local playground while hanging off trees and yelling during contractions ("Mummy tummy working hard?" "YES! Mummy tummy working VERY hard!")
  
• Drink castor oil (didn't seem to speed up the slow one)
  
• Machine quilt (brought the sewing machine to the hospital)
  
• Eat chocolates
  
• Moan, grunt, growl
  
• Breastfeed my eldest
  
• "I don't think the baby will come tonight but you may as well ring the support people just in case, but tell them to bring their books." (Denial)
  
• Bathe (great!)
  
• Gaze at a lit Christmas tree
  
• Hide my head in a pillow
  
• Visualise pushing a truck up a hill with my support people beside me, cheering me on but not helping
  
• Bite
  
• Demand acapella singing, reading aloud, acupressure, no - different massage, food, drink, ice, cold cloths on the back of my neck, silence and distracting conversation.
  
• Move around
  
• Wish I could still move around
  
• Try not to push
  
• Wish I'd mentioned to my midwife that I'd prefer any vaginal exams on my hands and knees
  
• Push
  
• Poo
  
• Bleed on things
  
• Forget what people were saying during their sentences
  
• Have a baby (twice)
  
• Enjoy the boneless sliding of the placenta on its gentle way out (twice)
  

Both my babies came out fast once I was dilating, the first was late and I didn't start dilating for 10 days of on-and-off-again patches of labour (and having been through "real" labour I can't call that "false" because it was the same). The second was early. I birthed both kneeling, though I wanted to get into a different position for my second as she was part way through and I just couldn't get up. Both were natural and pretty much drug free (I had a little gas when my midwife broke my waters for the first, late, baby. It felt stupid, like why would I do recreational drugs when I was busy having an important baby). The first was in hospital, the second at home. The home birth was fantastic, the hospital birth was fine.